This college football preseason, Sporting News writers will debate one key issue each week.

This week's question: Will Texas start another string of 10-win seasons in 2011?

Coach Mack Brown is coming off his worst season in Austin, as the Longhorns finished 5-7 in 2010 and failed to qualify for a bowl.

Count on it: Texas will start another string of 10-win seasons in 2011 By Matt Hayes

This really isn’t much of an argument. It’s more like a process of elimination.

On any typical year, Texas will have significantly more talent than eight other teams (not including Oklahoma) in the Big 12. Take those eight games, and three nonconference games (at least two are cupcakes), and you’re well on your way to 10 wins.

Unless, of course, the process is muddied by complacency.

Texas had become so complacent, so used to beating just about everyone during its nine-year streak of at least 10 victories every season, Mack Brown couldn’t see the structure of offense in college football passing his team by.

It didn’t help that the two best quarterbacks in Texas history—Vince Young and Colt McCoy—contributed so much individually and were so dominant in games that mattered, it was easy for Brown to think the machine was humming along when it really wasn’t.

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That’s why the most loyal coach in the game did the unthinkable after last year’s disastrous 5-7 season: He fired best friend and offensive coordinator Greg Davis. Long a focal point of criticism in Austin, much of the issues that surrounded Davis-led offenses were tied to ever-changing philosophies.

Pro-style or spread? The quarterback run game or I-formation smashmouth? Texas never developed an identity, but the play of two elite players (Young and McCoy) hid the critical fault. So when Brown went looking for a replacement, he looked to the guy who has done more merging of pro and spread sets than anyone in the game: Boise State offensive coordinator Bryan Harsin.

And here’s the best part: Brown didn’t know Harsin. Just like he didn’t know defensive coordinator Manny Diaz. The shakeup has rejuvenated and refocused a team full of talent—a team that still, on paper, is better than eight teams in the Big 12.

The offense will be less predictable, more dynamic and create more big plays. As bad as quarterback Garrett Gilbert looked last fall, he was limited once Texas’ huge flaw (an offensive with no identity and no superstar at quarterback) was exposed. There’s only so much the Texas defense—which played very well last fall—can do after getting repeatedly placed in short-field situations.

Texas is still Texas. The Longhorns still have the pick of the state with the most high school talent in the nation. They’ll still have a nearly complete recruiting class full of those players before the season begins.

And they’ll start another streak of at least 10 wins a season.

Count on it: Texas’ awful offense will keep Longhorns down By Steve Greenberg

Let’s amuse ourselves for a moment and pretend, just for the sake of argument, that the fellas down in Austin don’t have “Texas” across their chests. That they don’t carry the pedigree, established almost entirely by others, of 10 or more wins every season from 2001-09. That they have merely the mortifying results of 2010, when they started 3-0 and finished 2-7 (but did you catch that epic November victory over Florida Atlantic?), upon which to build.

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Given that pretense, suggesting the Longhorns will win 10 games this season is … what’s the right word? Amiss? Asinine? Absurd?

Go on, pick an “a.” While you’re at it, remember that you can’t spell “kaput” without the U-T.

Look, there’s no reason to pretend anything. Texas was a Big 12 pushover last season—and that is, indeed, what Mack Brown’s team has to build on.

It ain’t much.

But let’s look at the 2011 schedule, shall we? It’s far more pleasant than looking at Texas’ offense. There are four teams lined up that beat the Longhorns by a combined 61 points a year ago. In Austin. We’ll be charitable and say the Longhorns will turn the tables on Iowa State and Baylor, but UCLA (on the road) and Oklahoma State? Don’t see it.

That’s at least two losses, and Oklahoma surely will be another. Texas A&M in College Station? By the time that rolls around, the Aggies might be favored by double digits.

Apologies for misleading you: We’re going to spend one sentence on the Texas offense. This is a team without a passing game or a running game. Holy smokes, that’s depressing.

The defense is another story. Then again, star coordinator Will Muschamp left for Florida in December. If the only argument for a Texas comeback is rooted in its coaching staff, well, that there is another problem.